#by the metric of physical full albums sold he is second only to the Beatles

[rahleeyah]

I had one of those moments this morning: I was driving to work in heavy traffic like always, heading right into the sunrise, looking out at a long snaking line of cars five lanes deep, and I thought you know every single one of those cars is a person, all doing the same thing I'm doing. It's a beautiful morning and we all only get one chance to live and we are all going to work, or taking the kids to school, or both, rushing off into the sunrise, like we do every day. This is the system we have built. And we're driving on a highway that stretches from the Atlantic ocean to California; I only have to go one exit down, barely even have to get it on it, just one mile of this 3000+ mile monument to the human capacity for invention. It wasn't always there; I take this road for granted but in the scheme of things it hasn't been that long since the government took some of my great grandfather's land to build it. Someone came up with the idea and thousands upon thousands of people helped to make it and thousands upon thousands of people like my great grandfather lost part of what they had to make the dream come true, and now this vital artery of progress and invention runs from my front door to my father's, to the front door of my great grandfather's house, and on and on and on to the other side of the continent. I turn on my signal to let the car behind me know I'm changing lanes, another system we've invented - like the interstate, like the M-F work week - that helps us navigate the world, and all of it, all of it, was made by people. The car I'm sitting in, the clothes I'm wearing, the road I'm driving on, the buildings where I live and work, it's so easy to take them for granted, to not sit and marvel at the miracle of all of it, to not consider the work that people just like me put in to make those things a reality. Thinking about what we do with the time that is given to us, thinking about all those people on the highway like me, going to work in offices where we spend our lives and ultimately do very little to contribute, vs the contributions of the people who built the highway, the people who made the cars. Listening to a CD in my car - someone invented CDs! Some group of humans with more technical understanding than I will ever have invented the CD, like. How - and there is a man singing and he is just a man, just another guy, but he is a guy who pursued his dreams with passion, who didn't get up and go to work in an office building, and he has sold more albums than any solo artist ever, second only to the Beatles, and the woman singing with him she is his wife, now, but wasn't then, at the time the album was recorded, at a time when they were both married to other people; I have a piece of this man's dream in my car. And this is the world, and this is life, and this is me, alone in my car, going to work on a beautiful morning.

#let me be very clear YES artists like tswift and Michael Jackson have sold a lot of units but the advent of streaming music changed how #we calculate that. Garth has sold the most ALBUMS of all time but he never released his music for individual sale on itunes #or similar platforms and the literal only place you can stream him is Amazon music #by the metric of physical full albums sold he is second only to the Beatles #at 157 MILLION #if we are counting digital sales that's a whole other can of worms